Saturday, September 08, 2012

GRACE



I needed to revisit this tender, grounding passage by Susan Stinson today. May it speak to you, too -  

". . . May your hands weather with grace. May your fingers smell good. May chill on your arms keep you alive to your skin as much as warmth might do. May you grieve when you need to and know your own lacks, with matter-of-fact awareness, like you know the landscape of leaving where you sleep to begin the day. Leave the sleep. Begin the day. Offer things. Work. Build. Step toward others. Take a lean and a fall as a chance to spin on the floor on your back. Gather your courage. Make beautiful meals. Know your gifts and delight in them with specific, attentive vigor. Shovel. Pedal. Cruise. Oh, my darlings and others, listen as if you mean it, as if it matters, as if that act, in itself, were consuming and a kind of completion. When the moment opens, answer. The toilet might be running again in the other room. Get up, shake the handle and keep going. If the water goes quiet, there will still be ticking. We are our ordinary lives, and they have such depths and textures. We brush against the nap in relationship, or we're pressed to the plush, or something is jabbing, the plastic stem of an old tag, a broken zipper, but we dress in the fabrics of the lives near ours, however we bring them near. Such clothes. Such colors. . . "

Thank you, Susan. (Visit Susan's website here and her blog here.)








_/\_


6 comments:

  1. Very affirming about running toilet!

    A hopeful exhortation . . .

    Thank you, dear Claire . . .

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  2. Thank you for letting us join your revisit. May we recognize ourself as friend and not one of the usual suspects. xo

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  3. I've just discovered your blog and am intrigued by your images - very clear, pure somehow yet quirky and edgy too. The board walk above makes me think of a silvery snail trail.

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  4. "We are our ordinary lives...."

    Oh, yes.

    xo

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  5. this is gorgeous. and i just went to her website and read that fabulous piece called DRINK. wow. thanks claire, for opening this door...fresh air, etc.

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  6. It's always such a good thing to know that my words have been read and appreciated. Thrive.

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